A US State Department purchase of more than 15,000 computers built by the Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想), a company controlled by the Chinese government, is starting to draw criticism in the latest sign of US unease about the role of foreign companies in the US economy.
The computers, worth more than US$13 million, are coming from factories in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Monterey, Mexico, that were part of the personal computer division that Lenovo purchased from IBM Corp last May.
Sean McCormack, a US state Department spokesman, said at the department's daily media briefing on Wednesday that the computers were intended for unclassified systems and would be serviced by the former IBM division.
The computer contracts are drawing heat from a diverse group of liberal and conservative critics who have been warning about China's growing power for years. These critics have been encouraged by the congressional scrutiny given to a plan by a company controlled by the royal family of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates to acquire operations at six US ports; the company has since agreed to give up those operations.
The critics warn that the deal could help China spy on US embassies and US intelligence-gathering activities, using hardware and software planted in the computers.
"The opportunities for intelligence gains by the Chinese are phenomenal," said Michael Wessel, a member of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which was created by Congress to monitor and report on the bilateral relationship.
Larry Wortzel, the commission's chairman, said in an interview two weeks ago that while he would not be concerned if Airbus moved an aircraft production line to China, he would be worried if Lenovo ever started to sell computers to US government agencies involved in foreign affairs.
Responding on Thursday to the Lenovo deal, he predicted that, "Members of Congress, I think, will react very strongly when they see a deal like this come through."
Lenovo is a publicly traded subsidiary of Legend Holdings, which was started by the Chinese government in 1984 and is still controlled by the government; Lenovo declined on Thursday to comment on the computer sales to the State Department.
Word of the computer deal began to trickle out on Monday when a Lenovo distributor, CDW Government, a wholly owned subsidiary of the CDW Corp, announced its contracts to help the State Department modernize its information technology systems.
Max Peterson, the vice president of federal sales at CDW Government, said in a telephone interview that the State Department had approved a list of specific computer models, including the Lenovo models, and had asked computer systems integrators to bid for contracts to meet the department's needs and make their own choices among approved models.
CDW won the contracts and chose to begin delivering 500 Lenovo computers a week starting in November, he said.
Japan has deployed long-range missiles in a southwestern region near China, the Japanese defense minister said yesterday, at a time when ties with Beijing are at their lowest in recent years. The missiles were installed in Kumamoto in the southern region of Kyushu, as Japan is attempting to shore up its military capacity as China steps up naval activity in the East China Sea. “Standoff defense capabilities enable us to counter the threat of enemy forces attempting to invade our country ... while ensuring the safety of our personnel,” Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. “This is an extremely important initiative for
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) today accepted an invitation from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to lead a delegation to China next month, saying she hopes to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations and bring stability to the Taiwan Strait. “I am grateful and happy to accept this invitation,” Cheng said in a statement from the KMT chairperson’s office. Cheng said she hopes both sides can work together to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations, enhance exchange and cooperation, bring stability to the Taiwan Strait and improve people’s livelihoods. At today's news conference, Cheng said any efforts to
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
RSS